Where to find California capital loss carryover from a prior year

[Stephen in CA]

Hello,

For my California tax return, 2019 TurboTax Premier asks me "If you have a California capital loss carryover from a prior year, enter the amounts below.” It has entry fields for both the “Capital Loss Carryover" and the “AMT Capital Loss Carryover”. Exactly where (form and line number, please) in my 2018 California state return should I find this information? The screen provides zero guidance or additional information.

When I flip over to the form view for this, it shows the “California Carryover Worksheet” for 2019 and highlights line 9a which is in the “Loss Carryovers (non-passive)” section of the form. Surprisingly, TurboTax did not auto-populate these fields, even though I’ve used TurboTax for years and imported last year’s return data as usual. Seems like a bug. My software is fully updated.

I may very well have a carryover. So, I’ve looked around and found two possible info source candidates: One is line 9a from my 2018 “California Carryover Worksheet”. Another is line 8 from my 2018 “Schedule D (540) California Capital Gain or Loss Adjustment”. However, the figures are very different, and I’m not sure if either or which is the correct figure to use.

In case it matters, I was a resident of California for all of 2018, and any carry-over is from year(s) in which I was a California resident the entire year. Also, I itemized last year.

Thank you,
Stephen

[DaveF1006]

Check your 2018 return and look on Schedule D Line 6.  It should be there.

[Stephen in CA]

Hi DaveF1006,

Thank you for taking the time to try help me.  I appreciate you!

However, after printing out my last few returns and tracing a lot of figures across the forms and also from one tax year to the next, I've come to a different conclusion and also determined a few things.

I'm offering them here for you and others who may have similar questions:

• Line 8 of the 2018 Schedule D (540) "California Captial Gain or Loss Adjustment" form does shows my net loss for 2018 for CA tax purposes.  But, this is not the amount that carried forward to 2019, so it is not the correct amount to use for my 2019 taxes.
• This is because I was able to fully use (exhaust) that net loss in my 2018 taxes since the loss was under $3,000.
• Therefore, I had zero loss to carry forward to 2019.
• This can also been seen on line 9 of the same 2018 Schedule D (540) since the amount entered is my net loss for 2018 (option "a") instead of the max of $3,000 (or $1,500 if married/RDP filing separate) (option "b").  In other words, I didn't max out my net loss and was able to fully deduct all of it in 2018 -- leaving no part of the loss left over to carry over to 2019.
• Although I thought it was likely that I had a loss carry-over from 2018 for 2019, it turns out that I do not.

Good luck to everyone on your taxes!

Thank you,

Stephen

[Patel786]

I think it's "Line-7" of Schedule-D, Form 540 and not Line-6!.

Can someone reply to this and confirm this?,... I need re-affirmation.

*** I am surprised that TT has not repopulated this, automatically. It's surprising that they left this onto us to refer back to old filings to fetch this#.

[JotikaT2]

The capital loss carryforward would be listed on Line 6 (meaning the amount pulled from the 2018 tax return that was unused in 2018).

The amount on line 7 would be the current year loss from 2019.  

[WillChristiansen]

The problem is TT 2019 is not calculating the "California Carryover Worksheet" at all, including 9a.

So you have to enter the capital loss carryover manually in the worksheet using 2018's line 11 on Schedule D (540) based on my reading of the 2018 and 2017 tax year carryovers where that worksheet was in fact being calculated.  That will then populate line 6 on Schedule D (540) for 2019.

[ExcessTurbo]

DaveF1006 states “Check your 2018 return and look on Schedule D Line 6.  It should be there.”  Line 6 from 2018 Schedule D is what you carried over from 2017, so if you used any of that loss in 2018, that would be an incorrect value.

.

Patel786 states it is line 7 (from 2018 CA Schedule D) , but Line 7 is your total 2018 loss and if you used up some of that loss in 2018 that would not be the correct answer for what you carry over into 2019.

If you had the correct value JotikaT2’s response would show where in 2019 it would show up, but that is unresponsive to the question.

.

As to WillChristiansen, in my return TT2019 did fill in row 9a.  But I am unclear on the rest.

.

What a mess. 

.

Thus far I worked on TT2019 without “enabling” TT2019 to use California as my state return.  Once I did tell TT2019 to use California as my state return, TT2019 then showed me California Carry Over values instead of asking me for them. – It showed them to me in the *federal* section on Capital loss carryover.  Suggestion - Enable California as your state return early on to avoid wasting your time finding this answer.

[moniker]

Hi, I found it on my 2018 "California Capital Loss Carryover Worksheet", line 8 in the PDF version of my tax filing. It says "Subtract line 7 from line 6. This is your capital loss carryover to 2019". Hope that helps someone, good luck,  - S.

[dangit]

Yes! This is the answer! Too bad there's no way to put this at the top of the thread. To summarize, the solution is

1. CLICK ON STATE TAXES.

2. START YOUR CALIFORNIA RETURN.

3. DON'T DO ANYTHING THERE, JUST GO BACK TO FEDERAL.

4. DONE.

All caps.

[Christing123]

For my Year 2020 TurboTax, I installed CA state.  But the box in FED return is still empty.  Does that mean the carryover is $0 for me?

[ExcessTurbo]

Did you use TurboTax last year and import last years data when you started this return?

If yes, then possibly yes.

[Christing123]

Yes I did import.

So I figure out why it's still empty.  In CA tax portion, I have to dig into it.  Came to a CA page Capital Loss Carryover.  On that page, it is still asking me the CA carryover without any instruction on how to find it.

Shall I enter the same amount as the FED carryover?

I feel the TurboTax software is not helpful.

[uz902b74]

Turbo Tax was asking me what was my CA capital loss. I have no idea how to figure that out. I used TT last year but don't recall being asked that question. Now I did have federal capital losses due to stock I sold 5 yrs ago that carried forward on my federal returns. But regarding how to calculate CA capital losses is where I am stuck...help?! Does TT do this function at all?

[AmyC]

CA has its own sch D and CA Capital Loss Carryover Worksheet will be in your paperwork last year. It is not a form, it is a worksheet. You have to preview all forms and worksheets to see it. Part 1 line 8 will show your carryover for 2020.

[JL90630]

The response does not appear to be correct.  When I look at my 2020 CA return, Schedule D, Line 6, the title is "California capital loss carryover from 2018....  It does not state the carryover from 2019.

Where can I find the 2019 CA capital loss carryover?